How do I keep TextEdit from "correcting" hyphens?

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Level 4

2,301 points

How do I keep TextEdit from "correcting" hyphens?

I'm trying to type an address in TextEdit. It contains a 5+4 digit ZIP code, e.g. 12345-6789. The character between the first five digits and the last four digits is supposed to be a hyphen, and that's what I typed, but TextEdit replaces it with an en-dash! I cannot figure out how to prevent it from doing this! Does anybody know how I can persuade this idiot program to just accept the characters I type instead of making an incorrect assumption about what I mean???

This is the kind of frustrating idiocy I've come to expect from Microsoft Word. Now Apple's own TextEdit is doing the same thing? This is infuriating.

MacBook Pro 17, Mac OS X (10.4.10), 4 GB RAM, 160 GB HD

Posted on Sep 23, 2007 7:04 PM

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Answer 1

David Livesay Author

Level 4

2,301 points

Sep 30, 2007 4:35 PM in response to David Livesay

I've found the same behavior in Pages now. Apparently these programs share the same text engine? It doesn't happen in Keynote, Numbers, Mail, or in text fields in Safari.

Does anybody know what I'm talking about?

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Answer 2

Klaus1

Level 9

52,879 points

Sep 30, 2007 4:55 PM in response to David Livesay

In TextEdit's Format menu - have you disabled Allow Hyphenation?

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Answer 3

David Livesay Author

Level 4

2,301 points

Sep 30, 2007 5:48 PM in response to Klaus1

Thanks for replying, but hyphenation just involves breaking words at the ends of lines. It has nothing to do with this problem.

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Answer 4

Oct 1, 2007 2:46 AM in response to David Livesay

Just tried it in TextEdit, both plain and rich text, and it doesn't do it for me. Also can't find any setting to make it do it. Have you got a third-party program of some sort which might interfere?

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Answer 5

David Livesay Author

Level 4

2,301 points

Oct 1, 2007 8:37 AM in response to Roger Wilmut1

I'm investigating that, although it's hard to imagine any third-party program only affecting a few applications.

By the way, I'm also finding this behavior in Address Book. All my phone numbers are now being displayed with en dashes, and hyphens typed between numbers in the Notes field behave just as they do in Text Edit and Pages. If anyone knows what these programs have in common, that might be helpful. They must be using the same text engine, but if I don't know what it's called it makes it hard to look for a plist that might be associated with it.

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Answer 6

baltwo

Level 9

62,386 points

Oct 1, 2007 9:06 AM in response to David Livesay

With TextEdit, AppleWorks 6, and Word 2004 the only text editors on my machine, all display and honor the hyphen, n-dash (OPT+hyphen), and m-dash (CMDSHIFThyphen). I really don't know why you're having the problem, except maybe some 3rd-party conflict.

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Answer 7

Klaus1

Level 9

52,879 points

Oct 1, 2007 9:11 AM in response to David Livesay

Just a passing thought:

What Language is set in your preferences?

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Answer 8

David Livesay Author

Level 4

2,301 points

Oct 1, 2007 5:11 PM in response to Klaus1

US English

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Answer 9

David Livesay Author

Level 4

2,301 points

Oct 1, 2007 5:15 PM in response to David Livesay

Apparently this isn't an application specific problem; it's a font-specific problem. The following fonts are exhibiting this problem in all applications:

Charcoal CY
Courier
Geneva CY
Helvetica
Helvetica CY
Sand
Techno
Textile

It turns out that Helvetica was the default font in the three programs mentioned above.

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Answer 10

baltwo

Level 9

62,386 points

Oct 1, 2007 9:58 PM in response to David Livesay

Ah! IIRC, all of those are fixed width or san serif fonts. Try something like Verdana or Times. Those are what I usually use and never see your problem.

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Answer 11

Oct 1, 2007 10:22 PM in response to David Livesay

David--

Take a look at a post from the codepoetry blog. It's a bit out of date (referencing Panther), but it describes a checkbox where you can get hyphens to turn into en-dashes. However, I can't get anything but ligatures to show for Helvetica in that area on my computer. But it might be a place to start...

charlie

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Answer 12

David Livesay Author

Level 4

2,301 points

Oct 4, 2007 6:01 PM in response to baltwo

Courier is the only fixed width font in that list. It's hard to tell if any of the other fixed width fonts (e.g. Courier New and Monaco) have this problem because there's no perceptible difference between the hyphen and the en dash.

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Answer 13

David Livesay Author

Level 4

2,301 points

Oct 4, 2007 6:02 PM in response to Charles Minow

I can't figure out how they get that typography menu, can you?

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Answer 14

Oct 4, 2007 6:27 PM in response to David Livesay

David Livesay wrote:
I can't figure out how they get that typography menu, can you?

Open up TextEdit, and then open the font panel (command-"t"). Look at the third menu over from the left on the bottom. It has a little gear icon. Choose "Typography..." from that menu. You can go thru the fonts in the font panel then and see what fonts have what features.

But I can't get all the features that page shows for Helvetica. I only get a choice for common ligatures or no. Some of the other fonts I have have more choices, though. Many of the Adobe fonts have stuff like slashed zeros, swash characters, old style numerals, etc., just not Helvetica....

charlie

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Answer 15

David Livesay Author

Level 4

2,301 points

Oct 4, 2007 6:36 PM in response to David Livesay

Sorry for disappearing there for a while. I've just had a few really busy days. I do appreciate all your suggestions, especially the ones about fonts, which are the root of this problem. I haven't completely sorted things out, but there's no general pattern emerging. You pretty much have to take if one font at a time.

The first one I looked at was Helvetica. Turns out I had two copies of this font:
* /Library/Fonts/Helvetica (an FFIL font suitcase, about 7 years old)
* /System/Library/Fonts/Helvetica.dfont (a Datafork TrueType font, about 7 months old)

If I selected Helvetica in FontBook and selected "Show Font File" from the menu in the upper left of the window, the file it highlighted in the Finder was Helvetica.dfont. The file that ultimately turned out to be the source of the problem was /Library/Fonts/Helvetica.

Next I looked at HelveticaCY. I only had one copy of this font:
* /Library/Fonts/HelveticaCY.dfont (a Datafork TrueType font, about 10 months old)

So what have we learned?
* The problem font is always an old FFIL font suitcase. Unless it's a relatively new Datafork TrueType font.
* It will always turn out to be a duplicate. Unless it isn't.
* If you do have a duplicate font, FontBook will helpfully mislead you about which one is active.

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